Week Notes October 16

@James Boyes www.flickr.com/photos/jamesboyes/

What I did

• Hosted the Blackburn game with all the organisational stuff that entails from live-streaming (thanks to Mitul Samji for being our co-commentator this week) to organising stewards and temp checks and referees and the like. It’s such an unearthly positive feeling to come away with a win, let alone 3 in 3 league games. But, I’ve told people to take a screenshot of the league table and not let it get to people’s heads as we face probably the top 3 clubs in the league in our next 3 games!
• Caught the U14 girls playing Spurs, and the U16s girls v Yeovil Town on the weekend. As part of our focus on stretching the pathway teams, we’ve shifted leagues into tougher national leagues, but I was impressed (as were Spurs’ players parents who I could overhear) with the resilience in the U14s despite going several early goals down. The 16s had some brilliant pieces of play, which is great for a team that has only recently been assembled.
• Sorted out dinner and breakfast options for all our players and staff travelling this weekend (26 people of which 2 vegans, 1 dairy free, 4 vegetarians, 1 cheese allergy,1 gluten free, 2 meals, and 1 budget — makes for a fun puzzle).
• Considered and responded to the Project Big Picture information as it came out. I think there are risks in deciding the future of women’s football within a men’s football COVID rescue package when clubs are at their lowest level of negotiating power, and there’s a danger of creating an separate, elite women’s league, disconnected from the rest of the women’s football pyramid. Funds should definitely go deeper than the Championship, and into the National North and South to protect and preserve the talent channels — and the communities that have long supported women’t football. But I don’t think this needs to be discussed within PBP, and needs an entirely separate process with entirely different stakeholders at the table. As a football fan, I’m concerned about the power grab from a small number of Premier League clubs on the men’s side. Using a crises where people are struggling to survive to issue demands and consolidate power sounds pretty despotic. And special voting powers and permanent members hardly work well for the good of the wider world in other situations. Many advocates call for the dismantling of privileged seats from institutions such as the UN Security Council or the G20 (whose members incidentally are said to have been chalked up on a phone call between a couple of ambassadors, much to the chagrin of Switzerland and the Netherlands left on the outside, despite their weight and influence in the financial sector).
• Analysed the livestream data from recent games. These have doubled from our first streamed home game v Coventry to 523 households for our game v Blackburn this weekend — and viewers watched from 17 different countries. We’re tracking this data, as well as the number of donations we receive to see whether and how we can best recoup some of our sunk matchday costs within a COVID world.
• Had a virtual coffee with a recent grad about what it is to be a GM (I’m still figuring it out!). She’s super smart, and focused on leadership and impact. I’m excited to follow what she gets up to and what successes she will have in coming years.
• Spoke at the 2020 Athens Women’s Football Summit — check back on a huge range of panels and speakers and topics, all for free. Great to talk with Khalida Popal (whose brave and unsparing speech at a FIFA conference I had the privilege of hearing in 2017 remains burned into my brain), and Dr Donna de Haan from the Hague University of Applied Sciences and Sarah Dwyer-Shick of the brilliant Sports Bra Project — but it did feel a bit disappointing not to be able to carry on the conversation in the bar after the event as is one of the best bits about conferences (especially if in Athens)!
• Caught a friend for lunch and another for dinner. Yes, this is noteworthy, as this job can be 6 or 7 days a week, and often til after 10pm. I’m trying to be better at scheduling in things like meeting friends so that I can’t always be available. If I don’t then I end up taking the call or dealing with an impromptu situation, which normally could wait anyway until the next day.
• Worked with Zoe, the fab GM at Sheffield Utd to sort out a kit clash meaning Sheffield will very kindly be wearing their away kit this weekend. Both our home and away kit clashes with their home kit, so it was the only solution. Where their away kit is pink, we’ll make an extra donation to support Breast Cancer UK this month, but with huge thanks to Sheffield for agreeing to help us out.

Sheffield’s home kit (Courtesy of Sheffield Utd@ https://www.sufc.co.uk/women/news/2020/september/bees-report/

What I’m chewing over

• Aston Villa Women’s news about their player pathway extending into Aston University — and how we can create a gold-standard model at Lewes, from school to university to employment (with commercial partners keen to support development and leadership of young women), whereby girls reach their full academic and playing potential and have a holistic fulfilling dual career. I don’t ever want women’s football to replicate the men’s academy model whereby kids are spewed out with a single, tick box certificate. But maybe we can create something quite special instead.
• The Social Dilemma on Netflix. I was preoccupied by the intentionality of the development and design of built-in addictive features and the influence they can have on behaviour. It made me think of my own use of social media (ok, fine, put the device down), but also how the organisations I work with use social media as a tool for outreach. Are both Lewes FC and Equal Playing Field part of the problem? We seek the engagement and the follows and the likes. Our sponsors ask us about them, and it’s data that we think tells us about whether our messages are resonating. I’m reasoning with myself that I still know and perceive our most important (and memorable) impacts as being those on our players, our fans, our volunteers, our networks and personal relationships, but still, it make me uneasy that we might unwittingly be contributing to the problem by buying in to the addictive features.